


Twenty minutes

by thecrownofthereveur



Series: Under Gotham's rainy sky [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 21:32:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3304199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecrownofthereveur/pseuds/thecrownofthereveur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Jim Gordon threw him against a wall, Cobblepot remembered, he had done it with rage, screaming. Oswald had been scared, despite being dramatic on purpose, he had been. He had thought for a moment that Jim was really going to beat him like people used to; he had been trembling. He was trembling now too, after Jim turned around and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pushed him against the wall like before. He wasn’t trembling for the same reasons now, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty minutes

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Allowship, for correct my work and give me her opinions! I really appreciate it.

The job of a cop, or at least a Gotham cop, wasn’t to be a hero or a martyr for the cause. It was to keep things slightly balanced, keep them not as bad as they could be. And to do that, sometimes you had to stop being a cop and start being a business man, a very good one. At least that was what Harvey, after so many years in the GCPD, thought. Things were like that. Sometimes it was necessary to let a small criminal go to ask Fish Money for a favor, or arrest some of Maroni’s men to keep Don Falcone happy, even have little meetings with gangsters, to trace lines between what GCPD could do and what the mafia could not. That had been his _modus operandi_ for a long time, until Jim Gordon joined the force. The kid was troublesome, he wanted to make a big change, step aside from the established rules. He was a good man, Harvey knew for sure, but that had almost killed both Jim and Harvey more than once– without count, several injuries and the possibility of going to jail.

Despite that, Harvey couldn’t really despise Jim – he had done at the beginning, but the kid had, somehow, proven to be worthy of Harvey’s respect, and that wasn’t common. Jim was so many things that Harvey was no longer. It was like looking at his younger self during his first months in the GCPD. Maybe that was why something in his mind was telling him that it didn’t matter how clean Jim Gordon looked now; if he was going to stay in the police, he would have to become dirty at some point. That was what this job did to good men. Always.

But despite that, deep inside Harvey wanted Jim to break this pattern, to keep being different. So when he started to hear these rumors in the street, about Jim going to Maroni’s restaurant to see _Oswald Cobblepot_ , he really started to keep an eye on his partner.

***

When Barbara woke up Jim was no longer in bed. It seemed like he had gone in a rush because he hadn’t even left a note like they used to. She stood up, stretching her arms, and went to the bathroom to take a shower. When she came back to her room she found a message from Jim on her cell phone ‘I went to work, see you tonight.’ She slightly smiled and set the phone on the table again. She was going to make herself breakfast when she saw a black tie on the floor, near the closet. Barbara raised an eyebrow, picking it up to see it. It was a nice tie, black, not too expensive. Almost all of Jim’s ties were blue. He preferred them like that, and Barbara didn’t remember seeing him using this one, ever. She turned the tie and was surprised to find something woven on it. _O.C._

O.C?

Barbara clasped her eyebrows. This tie was definitely not Jim’s.

***

Jim stood up from his chair yawning. It had been a long day and there were just a few people left in the police station. Jim grabbed his coat and his phone, ready to leave when he got a text message. It was from Barbara. Jim had asked her some hours ago if they were going to see each other tonight. Apparently not. ‘I don’t think so. I’m going to hang out with some friends until late at night’ was her answer. But the word friends disturbed Jim, no names, just _friends_. It gave him a bad feeling, and he couldn’t avoid asking himself what Detective Montoya was doing tonight. He was surprised when he found out about the former relationship between his girlfriend and this police woman that seemed to hate him so much. But not as surprised as he could have been. He hadn’t asked Barbara anything about it; he somehow felt that she didn’t want him to. Still he couldn’t avoid being worried, to doubt and feel insecure. If this supposedly ended relationship was not really over, it was going to destroy the little of what was left of him and Barbara. And he didn’t wantto imagine that. He didn’t fancy being alone. Not now.

Jim glanced at Harvey, who was seated on his desk doing, for the first time since Jim knew him, _real_ paperwork. ‘Harvey, you want go for a drink?’ he asked without a lot of contemplation. If Barbara was going to be out until late tonight, he could very well follow her example. Harvey, watching him across his desk, gave him the most mischievous smile Jim had seen for a while. ‘I thought you were never going to ask, Jimbo,’ he said. ‘Just let me finish this. I know a couple of bars where we can have real fun.’

***

When after work some of Maroni’s men who worked in the restaurant asked him to go for drinks with them, Oswald was at first a little abashed. It had been quite a long time since someone had invited him to do something, and even if Maroni’s men did it laughing, almost mocking, he said yes. His mother would be angry, he knew. Lately he didn’t care anymore about it. The only reason why he hadn’t left the apartment already was because he knew his mother didn’t have much in her life besides him. But he was tired of her overprotectiveness towards him, tired of her being jealous of almost every woman she saw Oswald with, tired of being treated as a child. So he went, not bothering to make a call. And now here he was, seated at a table with these slightly drunk men, laughing about silly jokes, feeling completely out of place. He had always felt out of place in this situation, since high school.

Wanting to calm down, Oswald excused himself and went to the bathroom. There he washed his face with water and looked at his reflection in the mirror. He still remembered how Jim Gordon had entered the restaurant the last week, how he had felt a jump in his belly when the waiter told him who was waiting for him, silently, in one of the tables. He had gone happy, smiling. But deep inside he knew this had to stop. He had to concentrate on what he wanted and stop being just a funny man behind Maroni, Fish or Don Falcone. He was still in the game, and if he insisted on continuing to involve himself with Jim Gordon, he was going to lose.

***

When Jim entered the bar he was expecting to find the place a little empty. It was early, and this bar wasn’t one of the most crowded ones in Gotham (in one of them Jim, being a cop, would have never made it to the counter of the place). However, of all the things he could have found there, Jim wasn’t expecting a table full of gangsters drinking and laughing all over the place – he could tell they were gangsters, it was an impression they gave him immediately. Jim told himself to ignore them; he was here just for a drink after all. They weren’t doing anything illegal right now, nothing to send them to jail even if just for a couple of hours. So Jim sat down at the bar and asked the waiter for a glass of scotch. Harvey had not arrived yet and he was starting to get bored. He had just taken the fourth sip of his glass when a familiar voice got the attention of his ears.

‘I thought you a man of whisky, Detective Gordon.’

Jim closed his eyes, trying to not curse under his breath. He took aquick look behind his shoulder, just to find the joker face of Oswald Cobblepot looking at him. He was probably the last man on earth Jim wanted to see right now. And maybe Oswald noticed, because as soon as the smile appeared on his face it faded. ‘Hi, James,’ he said, more lowly than before. He made an attempt to shake Jim’s hand, but maybe that was a bit silly all things accounted for, so Oswald lowered his arm at the last minute, clenching his hand.

‘Hi, hm, yeah, I usually prefer whisky but…’ Jim said, slightly smiling, ‘but I thought a change wouldn’t do any harm.’

‘I see,’ Oswald responded.

Jim didn’t know what else to say. Should he ask Oswald, how was everything? If his job was fine? Well, no, he was a criminal, of course he shouldn’t ask that. But apparently Oswald didn’t know what to say either. So they stayed in cold silence, taking or avoiding looks, sighing once in a while. And when it finally seemed like Cobblepot was about to talk to him, one of the big, strong men seated at the gangster’s table made his way towards them, taking Jim’s shoulder with his hand and smiling.

‘Hey, I know you,’ was the first thing the man said. He was a bit drunk, or maybe he was just mocking. ‘You are James Gordon, the cop that let the Penguin live,’ he said, looking at Cobblepot. Apparently these men, and the other ones at the table, were part of Maroni’s gangs too. ‘What’s up? Wanna join us for a drink?’ the man asked.

Jim frowned, trying to decline immediately, but the man insisted,putting an arm on Jim’s back and leading him towards the table. Oswald followed, dubious, opening his mouth but failing to make any sound. Jim didn’t want anyone thinking the wrong way, seeing him drinking with a bunch of mobsters. He tried to say no again, but he was ignored. The men in the table welcomed him with one strange familiarity, making him one space to sit with them, laughing for the alcohol they had been drinking. And Jim just smiled, feeling awkward, out of place.

‘And how’s the work, Jim? Have you been catching a lot of bad guys?’ one of the men, a guy with very yellow teeth and a gorilla contexture asked him. He was joking, or so it seemed from the laugh that the question caused in the man’s partners. Jim did a grin, smiling condescendingly. ‘Not as much as I would like to,’ he said, making the thug erase his smile. The other men laughed, but Jim didn’t feel proud of it. Two weeks ago he was trying to send Don Falcone himself to jail, and now he was here, grasping his glass of scotch with strong hands, surrounded by criminals. Jim looked towards the door, praying for Harvey not to come in and see him like that.

Jim suddenly felt observed, and he glanced at Oswald, who was seated in front of him. He was watching Jim too, and in a very close way. Jim tried to half smile. Oswald did the same, awkwardly, like apologizing for the situation. In his apartment Jim still had the gun that Oswald gave him. It was a gift, he had said. A present for Jim.

The gangsters around them were still laughing, mostly about silly jokes or obscene comments. But Oswald wasn’t laughing with them. He smiled sometimes, sipped from his drink, stayed quiet. Jim suspected that Oswald was usually like this during his work hours. He was like a little mouse between big, hungry cats. But he was a smart mouse too, Jim thought, or so he wanted to think. Then he felt a slight touch on his hand, making him move. Cobblepot had tried to take his drink from the table, and while doing it he had touched Jim’s hand placed just some inches beside the glass. He retracted his hand quickly, apologizing.

‘It’s okay,’ Jim responded, almost whispering.

Oswald looked nervous, grasping his drink between his two hands. Watching him so closely, Jim couldn’t help but compare his blank expression with the smile of the other day. He felt strange. He remembered once again the night in his apartment and he set his jaw tightly, because everytime he thought about it he couldn’t avoid feeling turned on. And he shouldn’t feel like that. Did Oswald feel like that when he thought about Jim (did Oswald think about Jim at all?).

Jim sighed. It wasn’t a good time to ask himself such questions. So he tried to relax in his chair, and no more than by accident his knee touched Oswald’s while stretching. Oswald glanced at Jim again, he could feel it, so for the first time in the night Jim looked back. Oswald’s eyes, small like him, were sharp. Jim still could hear the thugs’ laughs, and the door of the bar opening and closing, but whether Harvey wasthe one entering or not didn’t worry him as much as before. It didn’t matter.

Under the table, Oswald’s shoes slid against the floor and touched Jim’s. Jim’s immediate response was simple. Take his drink to his lips and sip. He could blame alcohol later, if he regretted this (and he would). So Jim set the glass on the table, and he put his left hand on Oswald’s knee, squeezing. He did it without thinking, without any contemplation, and before he started to consider that this was a _really_ bad idea, Oswald’s leg brushed against his, moving up and down, like asking something from him. Then Jim took another sip from his glass, and another, and another. Jim knew he would regret this, like he regretted it the last time. But it was such a tempting idea to let himself fall, fall and never come back.

Oswald was currently trying to pretend interest in the conversation he had in front of him. He smiled, he laughed lowly about several jokes that maybe he wasn’t even getting. And Jim, like mimicry, started to do the same. He squeezed Cobblepot’s knee again, caressing the thigh from above the clothes. He could feel the man leaning into the touch. Jim had a tension between his legs, a desire that was putting him ill at ease and wanting. He wasn’t drunk, any more than he was when Cobblepot appeared at his door. Just a bit inebriated, a bit slow, and with a drink in his hand. It didn’t seem a fair excuse, but it had to be enough, enough to let Jim have peace for the moment at least. So Jim decided to turn his brain off. It would be less complicated that way, without Barbara, his ideals and his feelings colliding all with each other. They would disappear only for a moment, to let Oswald be the only thing on his mind. Just for now.

Suddenly, Jim’s phone made a sound. He had a new text. He stopped his caresses abruptly to take his phone out and read. It was from Harvey. He had just finished the paperwork, and he was heading towards the bar. In the text he said that he would be there in twenty minutes. Twenty minutes. Jim looked towards Oswald, doubting, clenching his hand in the man’s thigh. Oswald’s eyes were fixed on him, waiting. They were in a bar, with at least eight men surrounding them, with Harvey on his way. And they had twenty minutes.

***

When Cobblepot saw Jim standing up from his chair, excusing himself for something important to do, at the beginning he thought that Jim was really leaving. But then the cop passed a hand across his right shoulder, making a gesture with his head towards the back of the bar. Oswald doubted, just for a second. Then a slight, secret smile appeared on his face. When Jim turned around, walking towards one of the bar’s doors, Oswald followed. People at the table probably believed they were making business. But they weren’t at all.

The first time Jim Gordon threw him against a wall, Cobblepot remembered, he had done it with rage, screaming. Oswald had been scared, despite being dramatic on purpose, he had been. He had thought for a moment that Jim was really going to beat him like people used to; he had been trembling. He was trembling now too, after Jim turned around and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pushed him against the wall like before. He wasn’t trembling for the same reasons now, though. Jim wasn’t furious now, abrupt maybe but not furious, he wasn’t screaming either, just gasping.

Jim’s kisses weren’t gentle. The ones for Oswald weren’t at least. His body was completely pressed at Oswald’s, pushing him more and more against the brick wall. They were in the alley behind the bar. The bathroom would have been far too more obvious, right? People could enter, or have been there already. Though it wasn’t likely if they had thought much about it.

He heard how Jim undid the zip of his pants, how he unbuckled his belt. His suit’s jacket was on the floor of the alley. It would get dirty. Oswald’s mom hated dirty clothes. Those times when he was young, when he attempted to play in the park with other kids and muddied his clothes in the process, his mother screamed at him when he came home. She had hit him, many times, reproached him with her gaze. So Oswald hated dirty clothes as well.

Despise their heavy breathing they were in silence most of the time. They didn’t talk with each other while doing it. They just kept going. Jim wasn’t even looking at him. His eyes were lost in the brick wall behind him, or closing strongly while panting.

Jim unfastened his pants, and Oswald found himself trembling with expectation. Suddenly it occurred to him that he should unbutton his pants too, so he tried, with his hands shaking a little, feeling something heavy in his guts. It was this sensation that he suspected Jim was feeling too. The one they both had felt in his apartment, the fear and excitement of entering in a banned way, a danger zone. Jim held Oswald’s hands with one of his own then and with the other one he made a path across Oswald’s hip towards his thigh. He couldn’t avoid a moan when Jim put one of his legs between his and pressed.

‘Why do I think so much about you lately?’ It was the first thing Jim said to him. Oswald didn’t know how to respond. It was a strange statement, one that confused him. But apparently Jim wasn’t looking for an answer to his question. He had pulled down Oswald’s pants, and he played briefly with the waistband of his underwear, like wavering between doing something or not. Oswald looked at him, and he could see the beginning of his torso across his disheveled shirt and his untidy tie. In his neck Oswald could see his erratic pulse. He would have liked to put a hand to there, feel it accelerating, make some harmless pressure there, maybe. But he didn’t. It was a bad idea, erased from his mind once he felt Jim’s hand moving between his legs, making him shiver. They were moving against each other faster, wanting, and when their cocks started to rub against each other Oswald’s first instinct was to put a hand between them and stroke.

Oswald remembered then his contemplations from some hours ago: Jim Gordon and the game, the idea of losing. Losing because of desire. Losing because of James who was such good man, such a right man. The only one in Gotham really trying to do something. It was admirable somehow though Oswald may have found it like a foolish dream, having lived in the city all his life. Either way, he wasn’t able to think sanely right now, he was gasping, moaning, and his mind was somewhere else, somewhere else besides the success he wanted, the respect and the power, somewhere else besides the mocks, the laughs around him, the people watching him from above, the shame he used to feel. He didn’t care about those things anymore. He didn’t want to care. He couldn’t with Jim Gordon’s hips bucking against his own, with Jim Gordon’s hands on his sides, stomach and waist. He couldn’t.

 

***

Having Cobblepot against the wall, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, Jim couldn’t avoid looking at his pale face, his black eyes looking at him from above. He was short, Jim had noticed, or maybe he was just leaning too much against the brick wall. He was sweet, somehow. Like a child in a man’s body. An evil one, though. Jim kissed him. He didn’t know why. He had done it too that time in his apartment, he had done it several times, on the mouth, neck and shoulders. He did the same with Barbara most of the time, but somehow this was different. Right now he couldn’t recognize himself. He was moving faster, touching faster and without thinking. He wasn’t talking, he didn’t know what to say, the words were stuck in his mind without coming out. He could have told Oswald how bizarre this was, how from time to time he dreamed about him, how he liked his smile or how he found his trembling lips and his wide eyes looking at him sweet. He could have told him that this was wrong, that they should stop. He could have tried to explain how very excited he was right now. But the only thing that managed to came out of his mouth was a question: ‘Why do I think so much about you lately?’ His voice was like a whisper, like if he was in the middle of a marathon. His heart was beating. He could feel it in his chest like a hammer.

Oswald didn’t answer. He didn’t have the time. Jim had already pulled down his pants. He had trouble with the service gun he had on his belt while unbuckling it. His clothes were a mess. He didn’t know what he had done with his suit’s jacket. He had unbuttoned the neck of his shirt and loosened his tie. When he tried to unzip Oswald’s pants he wasn’t oblivious of the erection he would find. He had never questioned his sexuality in any important way. This time and the previous one, he didn’t quite rationalize that he was making-out with another man. Right now, bucking his hips like that, pressing his crotch against Oswald’s desperately, he was just being led by instinct.

Surely Harvey had already arrived at the bar. He could be looking for Jim, who wasn’t answering the phone. He hadn’t realized it was beeping in his pocket until Oswald, panting and grabbing Jim’s shirt strongly asked him, ‘Shouldn’t you answer that?’ Jim swallowed, shaking his head without stopping moving. ‘No,’ he said in a rough voice, ‘it’s Harvey, he can wait five minutes.’ Oswald blinked at that answer, but he didn’t complain, he blanked his eyes for a moment, grabbing him strongly by the shoulders.‘J-James,’ Oswald wheezed, Jim could feel his nails deepening in his skin across the clothes.

Jim had avoided Oswald’s gaze until now; he didn’t want to look straight at his eyes while doing this. He thought it would have been awkward, having in count how they were, what they did. But when he felt that familiar pressure building up, how his brain started to shut off, he heard it again, this not so quiet, ‘ _James_ ’ sliding from Oswald’s mouth while his body shook in spasms against Jim’s. And then Oswald let go of his shoulders and passed the hands through Jim’s hair instead, his arms clenching in Jim’s neck. Jim kept his eyes fixed on him, not even blinking. Oswald’s eyes were closed and eyelashes trembled. Jim felt overwhelmed, he couldn’t hold on the pressure anymore and he released with a muffled moan. He felt relief, a strange moment of lucidity. He kissed Oswald again, this time underone of his eyes, near the nose. After that he just let his head fall against the brick wall, feeling exhausted.

***

Harvey had arrived at the bar some five minutes ago. He checked around the place for him, confused. Had he really taken so long to finish his paperwork that Jim had left? He checked his watch. It wasn’t that late. He sat in front of the bar and asked the waiter for a Black Russian before taking his phone and sending Jim a message asking him where he was. But he didn’t get an answer, not even after trying to call him a couple of times.When Jim appeared, he didn’t look quite like himself. He had entered through a door in the back of the bar, his clothes were all a mess, and he walked strangely. ‘What the fuck happened to you? Harvey asked as soon as Jim was in front of him. He didn’t seem to know how to respond. ‘It’s difficult to explain, I…’ Jim muttered, and that wasn’t normal in Jim. ‘I’m sorry Harvey, I have to go,’ he added before walking away without hearing Harvey’s questions.

Harvey cursed under his breath, sitting again in his spot and drinking from his glass. He glanced then at the back of the bar, when some very loud laughs called his attention. At a table there, drinking and smiling, he recognized some of Maroni’s men. Could Jim have been so stupid as to bother them? Maybe they beat him in the alley behind the restaurant? Then another sound called Harvey’s attention: a door opening at the end of the place. The same from where Jim had appeared. There he recognized the funny figure of Oswald Cobblepot, The Penguin as he liked to call him. His always perfectly settled suit wasn’t that perfect tonight, he seemed abashed. Harvey gave him a suspicious look. Cobblepot walked towards the bar and seated with his partners in their table. He glanced at Harvey briefly, then looked away. Harvey made a sound with his tongue, thinking. What was Jim not telling him?

***

Jim came to Barbara’s apartment late at night. He shouldn’t have gone. He could have sent Barbara a message telling her that he was staying in his own apartment tonight. There was a reason why he still had it, despite trying to spend more time in Barbara’s, have some domesticity to prove that their relationship could still work. It wasn’t helping. He found, besides Harvey’s, eleven calls from Barbara and four messages. She was worried. Jim had thought that maybe she wouldn’t notice, being with her friends tonight – even if Jim wasn’t really sure that she had been with them. They fought in the living room. Badly. Then they both stayed in silence. When Jim stood up from the sofa, heading towards the bedroom to catch some sleep, Barbara stopped him.

‘Jim’ she said, ‘who is O.C?’

Jim froze at the name, even if they were just the initials.

‘Who?’ he asked, turning around to see Barbara.

‘This morning I found a tie with those initials…,’ she said, but it didn’t sound like a recrimination, or like if she knew. For all he knew she was just asking. ‘Thought you should know…’

Jim didn’t respond. Barbara didn’t push. So Jim turned around and walked to the bedroom. He didn’t want to think about what he had done. About the strange way Harvey had looked at him. About how an awkward silence had fallen between him and Oswald back in the ally, when there wasn’t anything else to do but leave. The only thing he wanted now was to sleep. And tonight, more than ever, he felt the covers wrapping around him in a heavy, very desired dream.


End file.
